Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disordered and control boys' responses to social success and failure.

The behavioral, self-evaluative, and attributional responses of 120 boys with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and 65 control boys to social success and failure were examined using a dyadic, laboratory get-acquainted task employing child confederates. Objective coders rated boys with ADHD as less socially effective than controls in their interactions, but also as less frustrated and helpless. In terms of self-evaluations, ADHD boys overwhelmingly rated their own performance more favorably than did controls and in some instances, these differences were more apparent following failure. The attributional pattern of ADHD and control boys differed in that ADHD boys were more likely than controls to attribute success to external, uncontrollable factors such as task ease and being lucky; controls, on the other hand, were more likely than ADHD boys to attribute initial failure to not having tried hard enough. Results are discussed in the context of existing literature documenting a positive illusory bias in ADHD boys' self-perceptions.

Differences in young adult psychopathology among drug abstainers, experimenters, and frequent users.

Shedler and Block offered the provocative proposal that individuals who experiment with drugs are psychologically healthier than either those who abstain completely or those who are frequent users. Not all studies have come to such conclusions, however. In an effort to specify under what conditions Shedler and Block's conclusions might hold, the present study examined three groups of drug users (abstainers, experimenters, frequent users) classified according to three different criteria: (a) marijuana use at age 20; (b) alcohol use during 10th grade; and (c) alcohol use at age 20. The three groups were compared at age 20 in terms of personality, deviant behavior, and psychopathology. The results revealed that abstainers were never more psychologically impaired, and were occasionally healthier, than experimenters. Frequent users of marijuana were consistently more imparied than both the abstainers and experimenters, in terms of both internalizing and externalizing disorders. Classification according to marijuana use appeared to be more related to psychopathology than did classification according to alcohol use.

The relation of story structure properties to recall of television stories in young children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and nonreferred peers.

In this study, the authors examined memory for televised stories to gain insight into similarities and differences in story comprehension between young children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and their typical peers. In particular, the authors investigated the extent to which 4- to 6-year-old children's free recall of story events is predicted by several structural properties of story events (number of causal connections, whether an event is on or off the story's causal chain, story-grammar category, and position in the story's hierarchical structure), whether differences exist between children with ADHD and nonreferred comparison children in their sensitivity to structural features of stories, and whether age differences in sensitivity to structural features are similar for both groups. For both groups, recall of story events was predicted by all four structural properties, but the effects of the two causal properties was stronger for comparison children than for children with ADHD. Further examination revealed that this difference was observed only when a competing activity was available during television viewing. These findings indicate that both groups of preschool children are able to benefit from causal structure when recalling television stories, but that children with ADHD lose this benefit when attention is divided. Consistent with previous findings for nonreferred children (P. W. van den Broek, E. P. Lorch, & R. Thurlow, 1996), in both diagnostic groups the effects of causal properties increased across age, and older children were more likely to include causally important protagonists' goals in their recalls than younger children.

Project DARE: no effects at 10-year follow-up.

The present study examined the impact of Project DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education), a widespread drug-prevention program, 10 years after administration. A total of 1,002 individuals who in 6th grade had either received DARE or a standard drug-education curriculum, were reevaluated at age 20. Few differences were found between the 2 groups in terms of actual drug use, drug attitudes, or self-esteem, and in no case did the DARE group have a more successful outcome than the comparison group. Possible reasons why DARE remains so popular, despite the lack of documented efficacy, are offered.

Comprehension of televised stories by preschool children with ADHD.

Investigated visual attention to and story comprehension of televised stories in 4- to 6-year-old children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and comparison children. Half of the children in each group watched the program with toys in the room, and the other half watched without toys. Visual attention to the television was recorded, and story comprehension was assessed by performance on cued recall questions. All children attended significantly less when toys were present, but the difference when toys were present was greater for children with ADHD. The groups did not differ on recall of factual information when toys were absent. When toys were present, the comparison children showed no decrement in performance on factual questions, whereas the performance of children with ADHD was significantly worse. On questions testing causal connections, the children with ADHD performed more poorly than comparison children regardless of whether toys were present. Implications of these results for understanding and treating the academic and social difficulties of children with ADHD are discussed.

Risky sex behavior and substance use among young adults.

Many young adults, despite widespread prevention and education efforts that target this age group, engage in behaviors that place them at risk of HIV infection. These behaviors include frequent experimentation with alcohol and other drugs before sex, sexual activity with different partners, and inconsistent safe-sex practices. The combination of these risky behaviors causes increased concern about the spread of HIV among this age group. The study discussed in this article examined the relationship between substance use during adolescence and HIV risk behavior among young adults ages 19 to 21 with and without a college education. Results indicated that increased use of alcohol and marijuana at younger ages is related to riskier sexual activity and increased use of alcohol and marijuana as young adults. Recommendations for interventions are made.

PIP: A mailed survey was conducted to assess the risky sexual behavior and substance abuse among an initial sample of 2071 young adults in Lexington, Kentucky, during the 1987-88 school year. The survey included specific items about peer relations, family attachment, self-esteem, sensation seeking, friends' drug use, impulsivity, physical health, health and mental health utilization, dieting, delinquency, violence, and risky sexual behavior. A total of 952 (400 males and 552 females) respondents were included in the final analysis. The findings indicate that earlier initiation of sexual activity is related to early involvement with drugs. Furthermore, male participants who used alcohol or marijuana at a younger age engaged in riskier sexual behavior than female participants. Female participants were more likely to use condoms regardless of their early substance use patterns; and those who had never experienced sex or who initiated sex later (ages 19 or 20) were less likely to report lifetime or current drug use. This study indicated that there is a relationship between the early occurrence of substance use and riskier sexual behavior. Recognizing the use of alcohol or marijuana during adolescence may raise practitioners' awareness, helping them identify HIV risk behavior among young adults more accurately.

Social persistence following failure in boys and girls with LD.

The response of boys and girls with or without learning disabilities to social failure was examined. Children participated in two dyadic interactions with experimental confederates: an unfriendly interaction and a friendly one. The children's behavior was videotaped, and they answered questions following each interaction. The children with learning disabilities were found to be hyperresponsive to both interactions: They felt significantly worse following the unfriendly one and significantly better following the friendly interaction. Limited evidence was found to suggest that girls with learning disabilities were more adversely affected by the unfriendly interaction. Several of the findings were consistent with the hypothesis that children with learning disabilities show a learned helplessness response to social failure. The implications of these findings for understanding the social behavior of children with learning disabilities are discussed.

Story comprehension in children with ADHD.

A wealth of research is available examining children's story comprehension. However, little attention has been directed toward understanding the story comprehension of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The present paper attempts to integrate the developmental literature on children's story comprehension with the little that is known about the story comprehension processes of children with ADHD. This review is guided by a network model of story representation that emphasizes the structure of causal and enabling relations between story events. Examination of the available studies indicates that children with ADHD lag behind their peers in their understanding of causal relations, and that their attentional problems may contribute to difficulties in understanding factual information in the preschool years and causally related information in the elementary years. Some evidence also is presented suggesting that children with ADHD are less effective in taking advantage of story structure features in guiding their recall of story events. Suggestions for future research are offered that would elaborate our knowledge of the developmental progression in the processing of complex information by children with ADHD.

Effects of positive feedback on the social interactions of boys with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: a test of the self-protective hypothesis.

Tested the hypothesis that inflated self-assessments offered by children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) serve a self-protective function. This was accomplished by examining the effects of positive feedback on self-perceptions and social interactions of boys with ADHD and comparison boys. Boys with ADHD and comparison boys, 8 to 11 years old, were paired in 60 dyads and interacted in two unstructured cooperative tasks. Following the first interaction, 1 boy in half of the dyads received positive feedback, supposedly from his partner, concerning his performance. Results indicated that following the first interaction, but prior to feedback, boys with ADHD had an overly positive view of how much their partner liked them. However, following the second interaction, boys with ADHD who received positive feedback actually showed a significant decrease in their self-perceptions, whereas comparison boys who received feedback showed an increase. These results are seen as supportive of the self-protective hypothesis that children with ADHD offer inflated self-perceptions to counter feelings of inadequacy. When presented with positive feedback, they are able to relax this defensive posture and offer more realistic self-assessments.

Gender differences in adolescent psychiatric outpatient substance use: associated behaviors and feelings.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate gender differences in substance use and associated high-risk behaviors and feeling states in 220 adolescent psychiatric outpatients. METHOD: One hundred seven females and 113 males with a mean age of 15.6 (SD +/- 1.4), seen in a tertiary care center adolescent psychiatry clinic, completed scales tapping substance use and associated feelings and behaviors. Approximately half had used nicotine and alcohol, one third had used marijuana, and 10% reported narcotic use. RESULTS: Conduct disorder behavior, suicidality, and impulsivity scale scores decreased with age in females while marijuana use, conduct disorder behavior, and Hypophoria scale scores increased with age in males. Alcohol use in males, as contrasted with females, correlated more significantly with other substance use and high-risk behaviors. Suicidality tended to correlate more with polysubstance use in females and with sexual behaviors in females only. Substance use correlated with the Impulsivity and Need scale scores in males and scores on the Sociopathy scale in females. CONCLUSIONS: Substance use in males correlates with high-risk behaviors and is associated with feelings of impulsivity and need. Substance use correlates with self-destructive behaviors and sociopathic feelings in females. There is evidence of more persistent high-risk behaviors, including substance use, in males than in females.

Attributional styles of aggressive boys and their mothers.

To determine if mothers of aggressive boys have the same propensity as their sons to infer hostile intentions in ambiguous interpersonal situations, 50 mothers of aggressive and nonaggressive boys were each asked to interpret hypothetical situations involving themselves with their child, their partner, and a peer as well as hypothetical situations involving their child in interaction with classmates and teachers. Their sons also were each requested to interpret hypothetical situations involving themselves with their mother, a teacher, and a classmate. The results indicated that mothers of aggressive boys do share the propensity to infer hostility in ambiguous situations and may, in effect, model a hostile attributional bias. Mothers of aggressive boys failed to differentiate ambiguous from hostile situations and were as likely to infer hostile intentions in ambiguous as in hostile situations. The results also suggest a generalized tendency on the part of mothers of aggressive boys to infer negative motives and/or dispositions when accounting for the noxious behavior of their sons. Further, for the aggressive boys, the hostile attributional bias was evident with both peers and teachers. The presence of a hostile attribution was predictive of an aggressive response for the aggressive boys. Even in the face of clearly hostile, provocative behavior, nonaggressive boys were less likely to offer aggressive solutions than aggressive boys.

Peer interactions of dysphoric adolescents.

The present study sought to extend our knowledge of dysphoric adolescents' dyadic peer interactions. Thirty female dyads (ages 13-17) were videotaped interacting during both a structured and an unstructured task. Fourteen of the dyads were each comprised of a dysphoric girl and a nondysphoric girl; the remaining dyads were comprised of two nondysphoric girls. Girls were considered dysphoric if they scored 10 or higher on the Beck Depression Inventory. Dysphoric subjects evaluated their performances more negatively than nondysphoric subjects and rated their partners more negatively overall. The partners of the dysphoric girls were viewed by raters as less positive and less happy. They saw the dysphoric teens as making more critical comments and evaluated them more negatively overall. There was also a tendency for these girls to reject their dysphoric partners and to become more passive during the unstructured task. The findings indicate that dysphoric adolescent girls evoke negative reactions from peers and negatively influence their peers' behavior. These negative reactions from others may lead to further difficulties in negotiating the developmental tasks of adolescence.

Effects of sugar ingestion expectancies on mother-child interactions.

This study tested the hypothesis that commonly reported negative effects of sugar on children's behavior may be due to parental expectancies. A challenge study design was employed, in which thirty-five 5- to 7-year-old boys reported by their mothers to be behaviorally "sugar sensitive," and their mothers, were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. In the experimental group, mothers were told their children had received a large dose of sugar, whereas in the control condition mothers were told their sons received a placebo; all children actually received the placebo (aspartame). Mothers and sons were videotaped while interacting together and each mother was then questioned about the interaction. Mothers in the sugar expectancy condition rated their children as significantly more hyperactive. Behavioral observations revealed these mothers exercised more control by maintaining physical closeness, as well as showing trends to criticize, look at, and talk to their sons more than did control mothers. For several variables, the expectancy effect was stronger for cognitively rigid mothers.

Impression formation in children: influence of gender and expectancy.

The effect of expectancy-congruent and -incongruent information on subsequent impression formation and recall of a target peer was examined. 64 boys and 50 girls (ages 8 to 12) were given an expectancy that a stimulus child was either shy or outgoing. Subjects rated the target on several dimensions (e.g., friendly, shy) and then watched a videotape of a boy or girl confederate acting out a script containing both expectancy-congruent and -incongruent information. Subjects then rated the target child again and freely recalled as much of what the target said as they could remember. Results revealed that when children are presented with both expectancy-congruent and -incongruent information, impression formation appears largely attribute based, and the influence of the initial expectancy appears mitigated. However, ratings of liking appeared to be more influenced by the initial expectancy than by subsequent behavioral information. In addition, the results indicated that many of Maccoby's conclusions regarding the effects of gender on social interactions also apply to children's social information processing, indicating a strong bias toward same-sex peers.

Gender, creativity, depression, and attributional style in adolescents with high academic ability.

The present study examined the relationship among gender, creativity, depression, and attributional style among high-achieving adolescents. One hundred twenty-eight eighth- and ninth-grade high-achieving students completed the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking (TTCT), the Children's Depression Inventory (CDI), and the Children's Attribution Style Questionnaire--Revised (KASTAN-R CASQ). The results indicate that there were gender differences only on the verbal component of the TTCT, with females scoring significantly higher. For both sexes, there was a significant relationship between figural creativity and a depressogenic attributional style. However, for females, high verbal creativity was associated with low levels of depression and a positive attributional style.

The self-perceptions and attributions of attention deficit hyperactivity disordered and nonreferred boys.

Compared the self perceptions and attributions of attention deficit hyperactivity disordered (ADHD) and control boys. The ADHD boys viewed themselves as no worse than control boys on self-perceived competence and global self-worth, especially when internalizing symptomatology was taken into account statistically through covariance analyses. In terms of attributions, the ADHD boys were more likely to take responsibility for social successes and less likely to take responsibility for social failures than the control boys. Although the ADHD boys scored significantly higher on the Children's Depression Inventory, this difference was no longer significant when items dealing with behavior, school, and social problems were excluded. The results are discussed in terms of their implications for understanding how the attributions and self-perceptions of ADHD boys may mediate their performance in challenging academic and social situations.

Visual attention to and comprehension of television in attention-deficit hyperactivity disordered and normal boys.

This study examined the effects of distracters on the television viewing of diagnosed ADHD (n = 19) and normal (n = 20) boys who ranged in age from 6 to 12 years. Subjects were videotaped watching four 7-min segments of "3-2-1 Contact," once in the presence and once in the absence of highly appealing toys. The results indicated that, while in the presence of toys, ADHD boys spent one-half as much time as control boys attending to the television. However, when toys were absent, there were no significant differences in visual attention between ADHD and normal boys. The effect of the toy manipulation was most dramatic with younger children of both groups. Recall of didactic content by ADHD boys and normal subjects did not differ significantly, even when the attention of ADHD boys was reduced. These findings suggest that ADHD children, like their normal counterparts, are active and strategic viewers of television.

Self-fulfilling effects of stigmatizing information on children's social interactions.

The stigmatizing effects of negative expectancies were examined in observations of interactions between children with and without a behavior problem. Ss were 68 pairs of unacquainted boys in Grades 3-6. In each dyad, a normal boy was either told that his partner had a behavior problem or given no expectancy; this expectancy manipulation was crossed with the partner's actual diagnostic status with respect to hyperactivity. The perceivers' expectancy that their partner had a behavior problem as well as the actual diagnostic status of the target adversely affected the boys' interactions. Behavioral data suggest how the expectancies were communicated to the target. The processes underlying interpersonal expectancy effects and the ways in which a childhood stigma can act as a self-fulfilling prophecy are discussed.

Single and combined effects of methylphenidate and behavior therapy on the classroom performance of children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Twenty-four boys with attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) participating in an intensive summer treatment program each received b.i.d. placebo and two doses of methylphenidate (MPH, 0.3 mg/kg and 0.6 mg/kg) crossed with two classroom settings: a behavior modification classroom including a token economy system, time out and daily home report card, and a "regular" classroom setting not using these procedures. Dependent variables included classroom observations of on-task and disruptive behavior, academic work completion and accuracy, and daily self-ratings of performance. Both MPH and behavior modification alone significantly improved children's classroom behavior, but only MPH improved children's academic productivity and accuracy. Singly, behavior therapy and 0.3 mg/kg PMH produced roughly equivalent improvements in classroom behavior. Further, the combination of behavior therapy and 0.3 mg/kg MPH resulted in maximal behavioral improvements, which were nearly identical to those obtained with 0.6 mg/kg MPH alone.

Teacher ratings of DSM-III-R symptoms for the disruptive behavior disorders.

Ratings were collected on a rating scale comprised of the DSM-III-R diagnostic criteria for disruptive behavior disorders. Teacher ratings were obtained for 931 boys in regular classrooms in grades K through 8 from around North America. Means and standard deviations for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), oppositional-defiant disorder (ODD), and conduct disorder (CD) scales are reported by age. Frequencies of DSM-III-R symptoms are reported by age, and suggested diagnostic cutoffs are discussed. A factor analysis revealed three factors: one reflecting ODD and several CD symptoms, one on which ADHD symptoms of inattention loaded, and one comprised of ADHD impulsivity/overactivity symptoms. Conditional probability analyses revealed that several hallmark symptoms of ADHD had very poor predictive power, whereas combinations of symptoms from the two ADHD factors had good predictive power. Combinations of ODD symptoms also had very high predictive power. The limited utility of teacher ratings in assessing symptoms of conduct disorder in this age range is discussed.